Private businesses for Outer Space

Many experts, including those in Russia, have their doubts that the private space business is relevant for Russia.

There is no doubt that the global business
community is once again getting ready to explore new waters; this time, the
“new waters” are space. In late autumn, the first privately designed and built
automatic cargo spacecraft Dragon, developed by the US company SpaceX, made a
successful return flight to the International Space Station, thus christening
the private space endeavour. However, many experts, including those in Russia,
have their doubts that the private space business is relevant for Russia.

The American who started this trend has
been working on private carrier rockets for years and eventually came up with
two programmes. The first one is SpaceX’s Dragon; the second is SpaceShip from
Virgin Galactic.

The former project envisions the use of
privately owned spacecraft to deliver cargoes to the ISS and low-orbit space
vehicles. But Dragon carried a limited payload during its first flight, so it
is a little premature to talk about commercial benefits.

Dragon will prove much more efficient as a
manned spacecraft, however. According to the Skolkovo Foundation’s Space
Technologies and Telecommunications Cluster head Dmitry Paison, NASA spends an
estimated $60 million to deliver one astronaut to the ISS in a Soyuz transport
vehicle, whereas SpaceX promises to reduce the cost to $20 million and still
make profits.

The spacecraft designed as part of the
second project have a very different objective indeed. The reusable
SpaceShipOne shuttle was taken to a 15-kilometre altitude by its mother ship
WhiteKnightOne before being accelerated using its own rocket engine and
delivered to a 100-kilometre altitude, which can be considered the lower space
boundary. The shuttle continued in zero-gravity conditions for a few minutes
and then landed like an ordinary plane, ready for its next flight.

Thrill-seekers will be able to take this
kind of suborbital flight for $200,000, which is more than a hundred times
cheaper than a week’s stay at the ISS with delivery by a Russian Soyuz
spacecraft.

However, the Russians should exercise
caution when adopting the American experience and introducing commercial practices
in domestic space exploration. Stephen Attenborough, commercial director for
Virgin Galactic, believes that Russia has a more solid state-run space project,
which is why private commercial space exploration is irrelevant.

In this context, it would be more
appropriate to consider private initiative in the use of the results of space
activities. “A characteristic coincidence,” Dmitry Paison reminds us, is that
“in 2011, NASA said it would enable private business to service low Earth orbit
flights (including the American ISS segment), whereas Roscosmos said in 2012
that it had plans to allow private business to engage in the practical
application of the results of space activities.”

Paison mentions projects pursued together
with Russian companies. “Some of the Skolkovo companies are advertising space
products and services. We should wait a couple of years to see the first
projects of this kind, such as the micro-satellite Sputniks programme and the
Dauria small-satellite service, as well as the Atmosfera parachute salvage
system for rocket stages.”

When it comes to switching to private
spacecraft, Roscosmos spokesman Aleksei Kuznetsov believes that it is too early
to draw conclusions from the first American flight.

Related:

“SpaceX is the first experience of private business
in the space sector,” Kuznetsov told the Russian magazine Expert. We need time
to understand where exactly this project will stand in space activities, and
then we will decide whether it will be applicable in Russian space exploration
given our peculiarities and the preparedness of our business for projects of
Dragon’s scale. There are businessmen in America who are ready to take risks.
As far as I know, Elon Musk, the owner of SpaceX, incurred serious costs and
even had to borrow. I guess he considered this project to be a long-term
investment.

It’s not clear whether our business is
ready to take such risks or whether it has enough money. Another challenge for
Russian private business is the availability of research and industrial
potential to carry out projects of this scale.”

Furthermore, it is hard to disagree with
Pavel Bykov, deputy editor-in-chief of Expert, who said: “The crisis of global
space programmes is perceptible also in Russia, but we have a well-developed
system based largely on the outdated Soyuz trechnology; however, it is
constantly being updated and modernised. It might not be perfect from the point
of view of astronauts and cargo delivery, but is a cheap and reliable system
that can work virtually for an unlimited period and remain profitable.”

Private initiative is only clearly visible
in Russia when it comes to space tourism; however, Roscosmos’ obsession with
sending tourists to the ISS is hardy innovative.

“Space tourism is, unfortunately, a major
problem for professionals like us,” says cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, deputy
head at Energia Flight Space Centre. “Tourism undermines the very foundation of
manned space flights, because we have to replace young cosmonauts with
tourists.”

In this context, private initiative in the
creation of spacecraft for suborbital tourism cannot come at a better time.